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[Zaph]

Gonna download my fave videos this weekend. Such a shame they never got around to actually doing anything good with it after they left.

When BermanBraun bought Screened, I remember poor Rorie having to wait ages to find out if he still had a job. When that didn't happen, I assumed it was because BB wanted to do what most movie/tv blog sites do - spend pennies on freelance writers instead of full time editors.

During the recent Puppy Chat (I think?), was really surprised to hear that Rorie actually turned them down due to the shitty contract offered.

 

[Incandenza]

Quick Looks of shit games are great, but that greatness can only last for about an hour or so before it starts to get unbearable. Deadly Premonition had a genuinely good story and characters and was oddly compelling, even if the shooter sections were bad. I tuned in to the P4 and DP runs to see the next part of the game as much as I did to see Vinny and Jeff laugh at it.

That could be part of the reason why Chrono Trigger wasn't as enjoyable. I didn't find Chrono Trigger's story nearly as engaging as either of those two games.

 

[RazielCuts]

The Endurance Run is alive and well. They just changed its name and put it behind a paywall

To me thats not what the Endurance Run was about though. Endurance Run was playing through a semi obscure game that maybe only a percentage of the audience had played and experiencing it together through the eyes of the GB crew. With the Souls games I don't get that, it's all inner circle talk, chat already being elite aficionado's going crazy when something they knew was going to happen happens. Which is fine but I don't think it works as a substitute. There needs to be a level playing field so the audience and the crew are experiencing the moments together. Thats what made P4 and DP so enjoyable to watch and CT less so.

 

[Fox318]

BermanBraun basically bought tested for the domain name right?

I still wish there was a complete picture as to what went wrong at Whiskey. Sounds like Tested was the ship that sunk everything and then they started launching sites that they couldn't afford to staff and maintain.

If it wasn't for the fact that Wikia was taking off at the time I don't think Giantbomb would still be around today.

 

[Alfredo]

Do we talk about Scoops and the Wolf here? Because I'm watching today's edition and OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL. Their conversation about DanganRonpa was excruciating. "holy fuck the principal is a bear HOW THE FUCK DOES ANYONE PLAY THIS SHIT YOU SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED." Meanwhile Wolfenstein is about an alternate reality 1960s where the Nazis have robots and superweapons, but that's totally normal and not at all weird. Donkey Kong has a fucking geriatric talking gorilla as a character. That's totally normal and not at all weird.

Yeah, DanganRonpa is supposed to be weird, and certain aspects of Patrick's critique are totally valid (ex. the voice acting, haven't played it but I know some people hate the English VA for some Japanese games) but there's this real stink of "oh fuck anime games that's so weeeeeeeird" that I really didn't expect from either Alex or Patrick, given the usual level of discourse. It was shockingly dismissive, especially on Alex's part.

I haven't listened to the discussion yet, but I think you need to have a certain appreciation of anime to truly understand Danganronpa's brilliance. You don't even have to like anime (I actually pretty actively hate it), but part of Danganronpa's brilliance is how it subverts your expectations in regards to normal anime character tropes. If you're not able to discern specifics of DR's weirdness and instead use "weird" in a general term, then I guess the game is less appealing.

But I don't even know if I'm arguing for or against something since I haven't tuned in to the AlexPatrick show yet. I will argue one thing, though: the English voice acting in DR is awesome outside of Makoto...

 

[f0rk]

BermanBraun basically bought tested for the domain name right?

I still wish there was a complete picture as to what went wrong at Whiskey. Sounds like Tested was the ship that sunk everything and then they started launching sites that they couldn't afford to staff and maintain.

If it wasn't for the fact that Wikia was taking off at the time I don't think Giantbomb would still be around today.

It didn't really 'go wrong', they got an offer from CBSi for Giant Bomb and the angel investor dude cashed out.

 

[Fox318]

It didn't really 'go wrong', they got an offer from CBSi for Giant Bomb and the angel investor dude cashed out.

That's not what I remember hearing. I thought the employees were not getting paychecks in exchange for a larger percentage of the company. The membership sales was the only thing at the time that was keeping the lights on towards the end.

 

[RazielCuts]

It didn't really 'go wrong', they got an offer from CBSi for Giant Bomb and the angel investor dude cashed out.

I don't think they just 'got an offer', I think the Whiskey guys were actively looking to cash out as I think they were kinda losing money at that point, running 5 different sites. At least this is what I've gleamed from Jeff talking about it and in his Jar Time videos. Jeff has talked about other sites having offers on the table but I think the main reason he went for CBSi is because of John Davison and knowing he was good people (his last good deed before he left).

I think if CBSi hadn't bought GB they wouldn't be where they are today but man has it taken them a good long time for them to get any sort of budget. Jeez..

 

[Zaph]

BermanBraun basically bought tested for the domain name right?

I still wish there was a complete picture as to what went wrong at Whiskey. Sounds like Tested was the ship that sunk everything and then they started launching sites that they couldn't afford to staff and maintain.

If it wasn't for the fact that Wikia was taking off at the time I don't think Giantbomb would still be around today.

It didn't really 'go wrong', they got an offer from CBSi for Giant Bomb and the angel investor dude cashed out.

Fox is right, it definitely went wrong - Shelby Bonnie didn't just decide to pack it all in one day.

They've talked openly about it multiple times. Long and the short of it was this: the ad market didn't pick up as fast as they thought it would (and it still hasn't and never will return to what it once was), the other sites were weighing down the two money-makers (GB and CV), and their costs were insane. Dave mentioned recently just their Amazon bill was like $30k+ for the month - this was before the price drops.

Also, SF got crazy expensive in that time and renewing their lease (or getting another) would have been much higher.

The CBSi/BB deal saved their arses.

 

[TheBaronOfNA]

Do we talk about Scoops and the Wolf here? Because I'm watching today's edition and OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL. Their conversation about DanganRonpa was excruciating. "holy fuck the principal is a bear HOW THE FUCK DOES ANYONE PLAY THIS SHIT YOU SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED." Meanwhile Wolfenstein is about an alternate reality 1960s where the Nazis have robots and superweapons, but that's totally normal and not at all weird. Donkey Kong has a fucking geriatric talking gorilla as a character. That's totally normal and not at all weird.

Yeah, DanganRonpa is supposed to be weird, and certain aspects of Patrick's critique are totally valid (ex. the voice acting, haven't played it but I know some people hate the English VA for some Japanese games) but there's this real stink of "oh fuck anime games that's so weeeeeeeird" that I really didn't expect from either Alex or Patrick, given the usual level of discourse. It was shockingly dismissive, especially on Alex's part.

I had the gut feeling that Patrick will not be as open minded with that game as 999/VLR or Fire Emblem.

But I don't think that game needs that you understand anime tropes. Just need to accept the premise of conflict occurring in a absurd setting

 

[FStop7]

To me thats not what the Endurance Run was about though. Endurance Run was playing through a semi obscure game that maybe only a percentage of the audience had played and experiencing it together through the eyes of the GB crew. With the Souls games I don't get that, it's all inner circle talk, chat already being elite aficionado's going crazy when something they knew was going to happen happens. Which is fine but I don't think it works as a substitute. There needs to be a level playing field so the audience and the crew are experiencing the moments together. Thats what made P4 and DP so enjoyable to watch and CT less so.

Chrono Trigger and Persona are obscure?

It didn't really 'go wrong', they got an offer from CBSi for Giant Bomb and the angel investor dude cashed out.

Whiskey Media failed, the buyout was a merciful exit.

AWS is an expensive trap. It's ridiculously convenient - everything on demand. Servers, load balancers, storage, it's all right there and can be configured quickly and easily. At at one point my company was paying deep into six figures a month for it, we've cut it way back but still need to cut more as it always starts to creep back up.

 

[BUNTING1243]

Would anyone be interested in full torrents of Screened's video content? Thinking about archiving all their stuff, screened was always my favorite Whiskey site.

 

[Fox318]

I want to see an endurance run of this:

Brad can surly spit all of his knowledge on anime.

 

[Ventilaator]

I actually still used Screened for the list feature for keeping track of movies and TV shows that I've watched.

Now what?

 

[FluxWaveZ]

Chrono Trigger and Persona are obscure?

Well, at least Persona 4 was a recent release when they started its Endurance Run as opposed to a 16 year old game. Plus, Persona was certainly more obscure when Persona 4 came out as opposed to today.

 

[popo]

BermanBraun basically bought tested for the domain name right?

I still wish there was a complete picture as to what went wrong at Whiskey. Sounds like Tested was the ship that sunk everything and then they started launching sites that they couldn't afford to staff and maintain.

If it wasn't for the fact that Wikia was taking off at the time I don't think Giantbomb would still be around today.

They bought Whiskey for the publishing platform. That is why most of the "top men" went with them (although seems most quit after their years contract was up).

"Tested" isn't a great domain but they had a site ready to go. BB were making programs with Adam Savage. Adam expressed a desire to get on the web. It worked out well for both parties.

As to Whiskey. The plan is always to sell your startup to a bigger company (either that or float it yourself). Seems clear they were not ready to sell willingly though. The economy and internet ads went down the drain so they decided to get out while it was still worth something.

That's not what I remember hearing. I thought the employees were not getting paychecks in exchange for a larger percentage of the company. The membership sales was the only thing at the time that was keeping the lights on towards the end.

You should really have a credible source before you repeat things like that.

 

[Fox318]

They bought Whiskey for the publishing platform. That is why most of the "top men" went with them (although seems most quit after their years contract was up).

"Tested" isn't a great domain but they had a site ready to go. BB were making programs with Adam Savage. Adam expressed a desire to get on the web. It worked out well for both parties.

As to Whiskey. The plan is always to sell your startup to a bigger company (either that or float it yourself). Seems clear they were not ready to sell willingly though. The economy and internet ads went down the drain so they decided to get out while it was still worth something.



You should really have a credible source before you repeat things like that.

I'm just repeating things I remember reading on GAF.

 

[Typographenia]

I actually still used Screened for the list feature for keeping track of movies and TV shows that I've watched.

Now what?

Letterboxd.

 

[chrominance]

I had the gut feeling that Patrick will not be as open minded with that game as 999/VLR or Fire Emblem.

But I don't think that game needs that you understand anime tropes. Just need to accept the premise of conflict occurring in a absurd setting

Yeah, I mean that's the weirdest thing to me. DanganRonpa has a crazy premise, but it feels at least partially intentional and not particularly tied to general anime weirdness. So for the guys to be super dismissive of it all, like they're embarrassed to even be discussing it with significant others, feels like it unfairly maligns people who are all just "so it's just absurd, right? we can move on now?"

And really every video game has weirdness to it, it's just that we accept Wolfenstein's bizarre premise but DanganRonpa for some reason is "whoa whoa whoa that's super nuts." And I get WHY that's the case--they're used to silly western tropes, not so much to silly Japanese tropes--but I would've expected them to at least recognize that that's not a universal feeling at all. Instead there's this feeling of "we all think truth bullets is fucking stupid, right?" and it feels exclusive when they don't need to be.

I mean, whatever. At the end of the day, no big deal. I just didn't like the vibe there, is all.

Ugh, I was gonna watch it later, is it all kinda like that or can I just skip that part if it becomes unbearable?

I think the DanganRonpa stuff starts about halfway through the episode. That whole DanganRonpa discussion starts to get really bad at the end of that segment, and then there are sarcastic anime mentions throughout the rest of the show but it's not awful.

 

[Zornack]

Dave mentioned recently just their Amazon bill was like $30k+ for the month - this was before the price drops.

This is why I don't understand why just using youtube isn't better. The 30k+ a month is from hosting video, right? I can't imagine the loss in ad money from using youtube ads is greater than the cost of hosting all that video.

 

[Mesoian]

This is why I don't understand why just using youtube isn't better. The 30k+ a month is from hosting video, right? I can't imagine the loss in ad money from using youtube ads is greater than the cost of hosting all that video.

It's not a great idea to have all of your video hosting in the hands of a company you can't actively talk to, especially amidst all this content ID stuff.

 

[Zaph]

This is why I don't understand why just using youtube isn't better. The 30k+ a month is from hosting video, right? I can't imagine the loss in ad money from using youtube ads is greater than the cost of hosting all that video.

If you have a significant network behind you (like Gamespot/CBSi) cutting cross-site ad deals, it's magnitudes more profitable than the shitty Youtube profit split.

Selling ads yourself means you can package full campaigns, including site takeover ads, pre-roll, sponsored programming etc. Youtube just sells ad space via wholesale bidding and does its best to match them to the user's profile (or browser info if they're not logged in). The more targeted an ad is, the more profitable it is - the downside being it's usually endemic which leaves a nasty taste in people's mouths (just look at the comments here about the Thief ad on GB's homepage...).

Also, while it's not negligible, hosting video has gotten a lot cheaper over the last few years.

 

[TheBaronOfNA]

Yeah, I mean that's the weirdest thing to me. DanganRonpa has a crazy premise, but it feels at least partially intentional and not particularly tied to general anime weirdness. So for the guys to be super dismissive of it all, like they're embarrassed to even be discussing it with significant others, feels like it unfairly maligns people who are all just "so it's just absurd, right? we can move on now?"

And really every video game has weirdness to it, it's just that we accept Wolfenstein's bizarre premise but DanganRonpa for some reason is "whoa whoa whoa that's super nuts." And I get WHY that's the case--they're used to silly western tropes, not so much to silly Japanese tropes--but I would've expected them to at least recognize that that's not a universal feeling at all. Instead there's this feeling of "we all think truth bullets is fucking stupid, right?" and it feels exclusive when they don't need to be.

I mean, whatever. At the end of the day, no big deal. I just didn't like the vibe there, is all.

I think the DanganRonpa stuff starts about halfway through the episode. That whole DanganRonpa discussion starts to get really bad at the end of that segment, and then there are sarcastic anime mentions throughout the rest of the show but it's not awful.

The worst thing is that the game subverts or even mocks some of the anime tropes that, I guess, Patrick and Alex have problem with it. The game is intentionally weird and contrasting 'cute' mascots with murder and betrayal. But like I said before, I feel that current Patrick is less open to "silly anime games" .

 

[AColdDay]

The P4 ER was fun because it was great content. It wasn't great because they recorded an episode most every day, and it didn't stop being great content if you watched all of a week's episodes at once.

Curufinwe droppin' some truth in here.

I just wish Jeff would do a feature like Breaking Brad so that we could see him play through a game.

 

[LackingSaint]

Do we talk about Scoops and the Wolf here? Because I'm watching today's edition and OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL. Their conversation about DanganRonpa was excruciating. "holy fuck the principal is a bear HOW THE FUCK DOES ANYONE PLAY THIS SHIT YOU SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED." Meanwhile Wolfenstein is about an alternate reality 1960s where the Nazis have robots and superweapons, but that's totally normal and not at all weird. Donkey Kong has a fucking geriatric talking gorilla as a character. That's totally normal and not at all weird.

Yeah, DanganRonpa is supposed to be weird, and certain aspects of Patrick's critique are totally valid (ex. the voice acting, haven't played it but I know some people hate the English VA for some Japanese games) but there's this real stink of "oh fuck anime games that's so weeeeeeeird" that I really didn't expect from either Alex or Patrick, given the usual level of discourse. It was shockingly dismissive, especially on Alex's part.

Time-stamp?

I've said it before: Jeff and Vinny should ER Fire Emblem: Awakening. It's a good combination of strategy and management, it's funny, has memorable characters, neither of them have played it and it's not just a Persona game or something. To my mind it's a perfect ER game.

EDIT: Holy shit, Patrick pronouncing it "Doppen Ogra" is amazing.

 

[Khezu]

ER's being daily was my favorite aspect of them, I liked having regular quality content.
Especially when one episode ends on a pretty crazy part and I can't wait for tomorrow to see the conclusion.

It gave me a reason to check the site everyday.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

The worst thing is that the game subverts or even mocks some of the anime tropes that, I guess, Patrick and Alex have problem with it. The game is intentionally weird and contrasting 'cute' mascots with murder and betrayal. But like I said before, I feel that current Patrick is less open to "silly anime games" .

Or any member of Giant Bomb, really. It's pretty incredible that Jeff and Vinny enjoyed Persona 4 as much as they did (guess that's a testament to how good it is).

But I'm not quite sure how much sillier Danganronpa is compared to Virtue's Last Reward. Monokuma? What about Zero III? Alice, Clover, K... Eh.

It gave me a reason to check the site everyday.

Major part of why I loved the P4 and DP runs. I was excited to check the site everyday because I knew there was a new episode to look forward to and enjoy. Though, they were fantastic for many other reasons apart from the daily episodes, of course. Those were some awesome times.

Still feel bad I couldn't get into the Chrono Trigger run at all.

 

[ZenaxPure]

Or any member of Giant Bomb, really. It's pretty incredible that Jeff and Vinny enjoyed Persona 4 as much as they did (guess that's a testament to how good it is).

The persona 4 thing has always blown me away because ignoring the dungeon crawling aspect you're just playing a pretty generic slice of life anime. I mean, it's well fucking executed, but they hit every trope in the book. There's a billion other similar experiences to it, just not in video game form (which does make it unique in that regard I guess). Like I have bad news for Jeff, if he enjoyed the story/characters of P4 there is a whole huge list of anime out there he'd probably be into.

 

[demidar]

The persona 4 thing has always blown me away because ignoring the dungeon crawling aspect you're just playing a pretty generic slice of life anime. I mean, it's well fucking executed, but they hit every trope in the book. There's a billion other similar experiences to it, just not in video game form (which does make it unique in that regard I guess). Like I have bad news for Jeff, if he enjoyed the story/characters of P4 there is a whole huge list of anime out there he'd probably be into.

I felt that Persona 4 (OG P4, not Golden, haven't played it) did a good job avoiding a lot of anime tropes. Besides the anime aesthetics the world was very much grounded in real life and silly anime situations didn't happen much. The characters appear as stereotypes on the surface to make the contrast with their true selves more intense. They do do the Friendship Beats All trope but they've earned it in my opinion.

 

[LackingSaint]

Haha yeah wow, that Dangan Ronpa talk was really obnoxious. It's funny seeing the contrast of them freaking out about how "japanese" a game is for having slightly odd names for items and a wacky antagonist, right after talking about a game with the most brazenly stereotypically american premise in video-games ("HEY, LET'S GO SHOOT THESE NAZI ZOMBIE ROBOTS") without batting an eyelid.

If a story about people trapped in a complex by an inanimate being and forced to kill each-other (often dying in ridiculous ways) is so "Japanese", I guess the Saw franchise was an anime all along!

 

[TheBaronOfNA]

Or any member of Giant Bomb, really. It's pretty incredible that Jeff and Vinny enjoyed Persona 4 as much as they did (guess that's a testament to how good it is).

But I'm not quite sure how much sillier Danganronpa is compared to Virtue's Last Reward. Monokuma? What about Zero III? Alice, Clover, K... Eh.

Danganronpa is way 'sillier' if you consider that its setting is a school for the 'Ultimate' or most talented people

Spoiler

that was destroyed in a student riot during a awful event described as "THEMOSTAWFULEVENTetc" that somehow involves Monokuma as a pop icon of despair

. But is clearly intentional given that the main villian is a teddy bear version of a Jigsaw's Doll.

Is more close to Ace Attorney and its crazy law system and excentric characters than 999/VLR pseudo sci Fi

 

[Ken]

ahhh danganronpa spoilers?!

 

[Curufinwe]

Do we talk about Scoops and the Wolf here? Because I'm watching today's edition and OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL. Their conversation about DanganRonpa was excruciating. "holy fuck the principal is a bear HOW THE FUCK DOES ANYONE PLAY THIS SHIT YOU SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED." Meanwhile Wolfenstein is about an alternate reality 1960s where the Nazis have robots and superweapons, but that's totally normal and not at all weird. Donkey Kong has a fucking geriatric talking gorilla as a character. That's totally normal and not at all weird.

Yeah, DanganRonpa is supposed to be weird, and certain aspects of Patrick's critique are totally valid (ex. the voice acting, haven't played it but I know some people hate the English VA for some Japanese games) but there's this real stink of "oh fuck anime games that's so weeeeeeeird" that I really didn't expect from either Alex or Patrick, given the usual level of discourse. It was shockingly dismissive, especially on Alex's part.

I do often feel embarrassed for Alex when he ignorantly writes off games.

 

[ZenaxPure]

I felt that Persona 4 (OG P4, not Golden, haven't played it) did a good job avoiding a lot of anime tropes. Besides the anime aesthetics the world was very much grounded in real life and silly anime situations didn't happen much. The characters appear as stereotypes on the surface to make the contrast with their true selves more intense. They do do the Friendship Beats All trope but they've earned it in my opinion.

I couldn't disagree more. You can easily look at a ton of other anime and pick out characters that are very similar to characters in P4 and follow similar character growths (the biggest for me being Rise, oh look another idol tired of the life that wants to escape it. Like I said though it's well executed in P4). But that aside, I was more of thinking along the lines of the structure of the game. Basically all of the events in the game are pretty much your typical fare for this type of story. The class trip where pervy things happen, the school festival where they somehow end up running a cafe, whoops lets have this really weird excuse to talk about all the female character's boob sizes. It's pretty much exactly what I expected in every way possible.

P3 didn't completely avoid it, but, I felt like it did a far better job at least putting twists on those concepts. P4 is pretty typical.

 

[derFeef]

I do often feel embarrassed for *insert name of staff member* when he ignorantly writes off games.

Fixed, works for all of them. Not everyone likes every game.

 

[Curufinwe]

Fixed, works for all of them. Not everyone likes every game.

It's not about someone playing a game and not liking it. It's about dismissing a game without playing it based on hearsay and prejudices.

 

[derFeef]

It's not about someone playing a game and not liking it. It's about dismissing a game without playing it based on hearsay and prejudices.

Exactly... like I said. Happens all the time.

 

[Curufinwe]

Exactly... like I said. Happens all the time.

I don't remember Vinny doing it.

 

[ThreePiMatt]

The persona 4 thing has always blown me away because ignoring the dungeon crawling aspect you're just playing a pretty generic slice of life anime. I mean, it's well fucking executed, but they hit every trope in the book. There's a billion other similar experiences to it, just not in video game form (which does make it unique in that regard I guess). Like I have bad news for Jeff, if he enjoyed the story/characters of P4 there is a whole huge list of anime out there he'd probably be into.

I had not started watching Anime until late last year. But after I did, I went back and rewatched much of the P4 ER and it really is just one anime trope after another. Everything from Nanako wanting to call Charlie "Big Bro" to summer festivals to wanting to smash a watermelon. P4 is basically Slice of Life anime in a nutshell. Hell, the only thing that P4 was missing was a high school Cultural Festival, if I recall. No Maid Café or Haunted House or something along those lines.

 

[Curufinwe]

I had not started watching Anime until late last year. But after I did, I went back and rewatched much of the P4 ER and it really is just one anime trope after another. Everything from Nanako wanting to call Charlie "Big Bro" to summer festivals to wanting to smash a watermelon. P4 is basically Slice of Life anime in a nutshell. Hell, the only thing that P4 was missing was a high school Cultural Festival, if I recall. No Maid Café or Haunted House or something along those lines.

Lol, it had that too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlB-HfQpYl4

 

[ThreePiMatt]

Lol, it had that too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlB-HfQpYl4

I must have forgotten that part. I never played the game myself, only watched the ER. I'm sure if I thought hard enough there'd be an anime trope it doesn't hit!

edit - Was there a Test of Courage?

 

[ZenaxPure]

I had not started watching Anime until late last year. But after I did, I went back and rewatched much of the P4 ER and it really is just one anime trope after another. Everything from Nanako wanting to call Charlie "Big Bro" to summer festivals to wanting to smash a watermelon. P4 is basically Slice of Life anime in a nutshell. Hell, the only thing that P4 was missing was a high school Cultural Festival, if I recall. No Maid Café or Haunted House or something along those lines.

A video game is a good disguise for it and it wasn't until I watched the anime adaptation of the game where I realized that "holy shit, this is really fucking generic." It's just saved by everything being handled nearly flawlessly. All the characters are great and it has a good sense of humor.

So yeah, the whole GB P4 love thing had confused me from the start and will never stop being confusing to me.

Also I can't remember a test of courage, so it has that going for it.

 

[LackingSaint]

Lol, it had that too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlB-HfQpYl4

Hearing this game without Jeff and Vinny reacting to it in the background is freaking the shit out of me.

 

[ThreePiMatt]

A video game is a good disguise for it and it wasn't until I watched the anime adaptation of the game where I realized that "holy shit, this is really fucking generic." It's just saved by everything being handled nearly flawlessly. All the characters are great and it has a good sense of humor.

So yeah, the whole GB P4 love thing had confused me from the start and will never stop being confusing to me.

Also I can't remember a test of courage, so it has that going for it.

Yeah, and by no means do I think the game or the store is any less because of it. Having watched enough comedy/SOL shows its more of an expectation, "ok, here's the fanservice episode where they're at the pool/beach/whatever as an excuse to show of the female characters in swimsuits." It all becomes a case of how these characters are written and how they react in these situations that come up in every show.

 

[FStop7]

Time-stamp?

I've said it before: Jeff and Vinny should ER Fire Emblem: Awakening. It's a good combination of strategy and management, it's funny, has memorable characters, neither of them have played it and it's not just a Persona game or something. To my mind it's a perfect ER game.

EDIT: Holy shit, Patrick pronouncing it "Doppen Ogra" is amazing.

I need to listen to this for myself because it sounds ridiculous. If it were a western game with such weirdness (see: Bubsy 3D) they'd be collectively shouting about how crazy and awesome it is.

 

[TheBaronOfNA]

Exactly... like I said. Happens all the time.

When it actually happens is made in tongue in cheek or the staff explains their tastes (and often admitting they are kind of weird).

A big problem that I actually have with Patrick before he went to Chicago is that he can be outright dismissive of stuff he doesn't like (or super apologetic with stuff he likes).

He can be open minded but also pretty fast to close the door.

 

[bonercop]

Or any member of Giant Bomb, really. It's pretty incredible that Jeff and Vinny enjoyed Persona 4 as much as they did (guess that's a testament to how good it is).

But I'm not quite sure how much sillier Danganronpa is compared to Virtue's Last Reward. Monokuma? What about Zero III? Alice, Clover, K... Eh.

none of that compares to things like

Spoiler

junko, ssj Taka, genocide jill or monoworld

the zero escape games have their fair share of anime silliness, but dangan ronpa is simply several notches crazier(and way less self-serious, I guess).

 

[ultron87]

Do we talk about Scoops and the Wolf here? Because I'm watching today's edition and OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL. Their conversation about DanganRonpa was excruciating. "holy fuck the principal is a bear HOW THE FUCK DOES ANYONE PLAY THIS SHIT YOU SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED." Meanwhile Wolfenstein is about an alternate reality 1960s where the Nazis have robots and superweapons, but that's totally normal and not at all weird. Donkey Kong has a fucking geriatric talking gorilla as a character. That's totally normal and not at all weird.

Yeah, DanganRonpa is supposed to be weird, and certain aspects of Patrick's critique are totally valid (ex. the voice acting, haven't played it but I know some people hate the English VA for some Japanese games) but there's this real stink of "oh fuck anime games that's so weeeeeeeird" that I really didn't expect from either Alex or Patrick, given the usual level of discourse. It was shockingly dismissive, especially on Alex's part.

You have ridiculously overreacted to the discussion. Did you blank out in a white hot rage after Alex said "that's really fucking Japanese"? They both admit it is crazy, but not really in a negative way. Alex later even says he's played and enjoyed plenty of weird Japanese games and says this might be too weird for him even though it does sound cool at points. After that it is just mostly playful jibing about the term "anime editor".

 

[FluxWaveZ]

none of that compares to things like

Spoiler

junko, ssj Taka, genocide jill or monoworld

the zero escape games have their fair share of anime silliness, but dangan ronpa is simply several notches crazier(and way less self-serious, I guess).

But Zero Escape has morphogenetic fields and time traveling.

I do agree that the game's style lends it a more frenetic and intense atmosphere as opposed ZE's slow and brooding one, though.

 

[TheBaronOfNA]

A video game is a good disguise for it and it wasn't until I watched the anime adaptation of the game where I realized that "holy shit, this is really fucking generic." It's just saved by everything being handled nearly flawlessly. All the characters are great and it has a good sense of humor.

So yeah, the whole GB P4 love thing had confused me from the start and will never stop being confusing to me.

Also I can't remember a test of courage, so it has that going for it.

TBut you said yourself, the game executes well but the anime is a poor, if faithful, adaptation of the game. Just for fun: Compare when P4MC presents himself in class and King Moron reaction with the game and the anime.

The problem is not that is a overused trope, is more that is executed in a poor way.

Incidentally, the same director seemed to also I'm charge of Devil Survivor 2 and Danganronpa anime adaptations (with a lot of mixed results)